


Everything he touches turns to excitement

by fuckingspacequeen



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckingspacequeen/pseuds/fuckingspacequeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has this habit of putting his dog tags in his mouth. Sherlock just can't stop noticing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything he touches turns to excitement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from the Sherlock kink meme on lj, I think, which I now can't find.
> 
> It was something along the lines of: "John has this habit of putting his dog tags in his mouth. Sherlock just can't stop noticing it."
> 
> Essentially just a bit of fluff. This is my first go at this sort of thing, so please go easy on me!
> 
> Many thanks to watching-us-fall of tumblr for being my personal cheerleader and lovely beta. <3
> 
> Enjoy!

“You like a close shave, don’t you?”

Honor Blackman’s voice rings out across the living room as Pussy Galore sashays across the screen for the benefit of Sean Connery’s James Bond. It’s the third Bond movie of the night for John and Sherlock, after John decided earlier on in the day that they were “having a Bond night” once he found out that Sherlock had never seen the movies before. Unsurprisingly, Sherlock hadn’t been impressed, but by the time the pair had gotten to the end of their second movie, he’d insisted that they move on to a third, even though it was getting so late as to be called early.

Despite the fact that he’d claimed to be getting into the movies, right at that moment in time, Sherlock’s attention is focussed almost solely on John. John who is leaning forward, elbows resting easily on his knees, obviously utterly engrossed in the movie and not in the room at all right at that moment in time. But that’s not the part of John Sherlock’s looking at, because the thing is, is that John has this habit that drives Sherlock absolutely fucking crazy. Once he’d noticed it, Sherlock realised that actually, it’s something John does quite a lot when he’s not thinking. And once he’d noticed it, God, Sherlock just couldn’t stop noticing it.

And he’s doing it again, right at that moment in time, enthralled by the movie as he is. Those dog tags – those fucking dog tags – that Sherlock has come to simultaneously love and hate. John’s just sitting there, casually sucking on one of the rectangular pieces in a way that is positively indecent, gently dragging his teeth across the metal so that Sherlock can’t help but fancy that he can hear the scrape of enamel on steel, even though he knows he can’t. And fuck, it’s not like he can look away. It’s almost like a compulsion, the way Sherlock finds himself completely and utterly unable to focus on anything else, even though he glances at the TV a couple of times, in some kind of pretence at paying attention to what’s happening on screen.

But now that he’s noticed, there’s not really even any point in trying to look away. Not really any point in pretending that he wants to be looking at anything other than John right at that moment in time. John who doesn’t even fucking know what kind of effect he’s having on Sherlock as he sits there watching the movie, still worrying the tags gently with his teeth.

Suddenly, the movie’s ended and the only reason Sherlock even knows this is because John has taken the dog tags out of his mouth finally, and is sitting there looking at Sherlock with this confused, lost puppy look on his face. Sherlock finds himself blinking several times as he tries to focus back on the here and now, but for once in his life he’s finding that pretty difficult.

“What?” he says finally, aware that John has spoken, but without a clue as to what it is that he’s actually said. He watched his mouth move, of course, but his brain feels scrambled and sluggish, almost exactly the same as it did after that one time he ended up with mild concussion. Alright, maybe it wasn’t just once, but that’s not the point right at this moment in time.

John’s look has turned to one of mild concern. “I said: what did you think?” he repeats, giving Sherlock this careful once over, before shifting slightly uncomfortably under that intense blue-eyed gaze.

Sherlock finds himself clearing his throat, almost like he’s embarrassed – and he probably should be – but really it’s just to give himself time enough to think of a suitable response. “You already know what I think,” he responds, somehow managing to sound like his usual slightly-smug self, even though that’s not really how he’s feeling at all right then. Lust is the word that comes to mind, and had John not been right there in the room with him, Sherlock might have paused to consider it – if only for a moment.

John gives him a good natured, but long suffering, grin. “Well,” he retorts, pausing in order to stifle a yawn, “It was your idea we watch it.”

Sherlock finds himself unable to help grinning back, despite the fact that he still can’t get the image of John and those dog tags out of his mind. “Good,” he says finally, “It was pretty good.”

The semi-disbelieving look he receives from John only makes Sherlock’s grin further widen, and for a moment he looks like the Cheshire cat, and John can’t help but wonder why he’s quite so pleased with himself. Instead of asking, however – he knows better than to waste his time – John unfurls himself and then stretches, briefly, before climbing to his feet. “Bed for me, I think –“ he begins, cutting himself off mid-speech in order to yawn.

“I want to watch another one,” Sherlock says, almost more surprised than John is that the words have come out of his mouth. They both know he doesn’t want to watch another one, and it’s obvious in the look that John’s giving him that the ex-military man is confused as to why Sherlock would continue to persist with something he’s honestly, when it comes down to it, not that interested in. After all, he knows the only reason Sherlock agreed to watch the movies in the first place was because it was John that had asked. Anyone else would have been told – and not politely – where to stick their “Bond night”.

“Sherlock –“ John begins, pausing to yawn once again, before glancing up at the clock on the wall. “It’s nearly three am; some of us need to sleep.”

“You can sleep when you’re dead,” Sherlock responds dismissively, mostly because he knows it’s exactly the kind of response John is expecting from him. The somewhat wicked grin probably wasn’t, though.

“And you can watch the film on your own.”

“What’s the point in watching it on my own?”

John gives him a disbelieving look, the kind Sherlock probably gets all too often if the truth be told. Usually, from John, it’s disbelief wrapped in surprise and admiration, but this time around it’s just sheer incredulity at the question which, knowing Sherlock, was a serious one.  “For the story, for the characters … to escape reality. The same reason you’d watch a movie with someone,” he responds finally, feeling somehow like this is a battle he’s already lost. Mind, with Sherlock, that’s inevitably the case.

Sherlock gives him one of those infamously blank looks; the kind that implies that he can’t deal with this kind of idiocy, because it’s just too far below him. Privately, Sherlock can’t help but wonder whether or not this is a good idea. He’s always had an addictive personality, after all.

“Alright,” John relents, after a pregnant pause and Sherlock’s look turning expectant as he waited for what he obviously viewed as the inevitable acquiescence of his army doctor. “Allbloodyright,” he repeats, long-suffering, as he moves to change the disc in the player, only to be stopped in his tracks by Sherlock holding up a dismissive hand.

He sits down again and watches in complete and utter surprise as Sherlock stoops to deftly change the discs over. Sherlock who never completes any mundane task he can fob off on someone else, usually John. The dvd player is set up in double quick time, and John must be tired, because he feels like he’s barely had the chance to blink before Sherlock is somehow perched on the arm of his chair, wrestling with the remote control.

The consulting detective barely manages to finish fast forwarding through the adverts, the tv reminding them that they wouldn’t steal a car (and Sherlock would, actually, and has done so in the past), when everything goes to Hell in light of John slipping the dog tags back into his mouth. He looks up at Sherlock in bewilderment as the tv randomly switches into Russian, because Sherlock’s gaze is very intently trained on John’s mouth, and not at all focussed on what he was previously doing.

“Sherlock, what—“ he begins, the tags dropping inelegantly from his mouth in his bewilderment. He doesn’t get a chance to finish as Sherlock bears down on him, mouth suddenly pressing hotly into John’s own in what he surmises, with difficulty, is a kiss.

It’s over almost as quickly as it begun; the sound of their teeth clacking together still ringing in John’s ears, lips tingling, as he gives Sherlock a look that says plainly: what the hell?

It’s a question Sherlock isn’t entirely sure he can answer, not concisely anyway, because feelings are fleeting and inconvenient and he simply doesn’t have enough data for any of this to make much sense, really. “If you could stop putting those” – his gaze indicates the dog tags – “in your mouth, I’d appreciate it,” he says shortly, and then stands up and leaves the room so abruptly that John’s head is left spinning.

The doctor sits in silence for a few long moments, listening to the sound of Sherlock’s footsteps on the stairs – taking them two and three at a time – and then the unceremonious slam of the front door. He can hear Mrs Hudson moving around downstairs, which means that Sherlock probably just woke her up. John feels suddenly angry at the fact that he’s the one that’s going to have to apologise to her for that, even though she’ll wave it away with one of her knowing smiles.

He’s not really angry about that, though, and as he runs his tongue over his lower lip thoughtfully, John decides it’s time he got some sleep. At least with Sherlock out of the house, it’ll be uninterrupted. He figures things will probably seem different in the light of day, and he can ask Sherlock what was going on when he next sees him – John has a horrible sneaking suspicion that it was some kind of experiment.

*

When John wakes up to a text from Sherlock six hours later (Meet me at Charing Cross station in one hour –SH) and finds a hot cup of tea waiting for him downstairs, he doesn’t quite know what to think. In the end, they never do talk about what happened the night before.  


End file.
